Alex Mitchell

The 13th Tablet

Prologue

December 5th, 2004. Mosul, Iraq

Mina stepped into her living room. It was completely dark. She always closed the shutters against the fierce Iraqi sun but she didn’t recall closing them this tightly. The air was stuffy and she couldn’t see a thing. She flipped the light switch but nothing happened. She was about to try again when she heard a slight shuffling sound to her right.

‘Hal honaka ahad? Is anybody there?’ she asked hesitantly. A second or two passed but no answer came back. Suddenly someone yanked her arms backwards and bound her wrists with cable ties. She heard the zipping sound of the ties tightening around her wrists, before another person pulled a large plastic freezer bag over her head and held it tightly round the base of her neck.

Panicking, Mina gulped a breath which emptied the bag of the little oxygen it held and left her gasping for air. She started choking, sucking the plastic deep into her mouth. She fell to her knees.

As she felt her mind fogging, she heard the creaking sound of the shutters being opened slightly. In a blur she could make out three men in dark clothing, towering over her. One of the men bent down and yanked the bag from her head. She gasped for air, breathing so deeply she thought her lungs would explode. She burst into tears and shook violently, the body’s natural response when given another shot at life.

The men didn’t give her any time to think. They pulled her to her feet roughly and flung her on a chair. One man stepped up to her, bending low to stare into her tear-filled eyes and said in a cold voice, ‘Miss Osman?’

Mina didn’t reply.

‘Miss Osman, you don’t know us, but we know everything about you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Good,’ he replied slowly, ‘so where is it?’

‘Where is what?’

‘Wrong answer,’ he said and turned to one of the other men, ‘You, the bag!’

‘Please,’ Mina begged him frantically, ‘don’t torture me! What do you want? I don’t know anything…’ She stopped talking abruptly when she saw her interrogator bringing a sharp knife towards her throat. It glinted in the single beam of sunlight peeking through the shutters.

He held the sharp edge of the knife under her ear and said, ‘The tablet, Miss Osman, where is it?’

That’s what they were after, Hassan’s tablet? But how could they have known she had it? This was insane.

‘So?’ He asked, slowly pushing the blade against the skin below her ear until she felt it cut through. Pain flashed through her and she felt warm blood trickling down her neck. Instinctively she tried to bring a hand up to stem the bleeding but she was still tied up. She was utterly helpless. ‘Please, please don’t hurt me,’ she sobbed, ‘the tablet is in my rucksack.’

He pulled the knife away and turned to the other man, ‘Pass me the plastic bag.’ Taking the plastic bag, he turned back to Mina and with a sinister smile said, ‘We wouldn’t want to leave any traces, would we?’